Remembrance

I am incredibly lucky. For me, unlike so many other New Yorkers, yesterday isn’t a day where I have to remember a loved one, to grieve a family member or friend lost. My family was all tucked away in their safe little suburbs. My friends all got out and got to safety before the buildings came down. I am incredibly lucky.

That first anniversary, a friend from another city sent me one of those “never forget” emails. And I pretty much exploded. Maybe the rest of the country needed to remember, but it wasn’t history here in New York. It was still happening every day. The sights and sounds and smells were still so vivid in my mind that I wasn’t sure I’d ever get them to go away for a little while, let alone forever. We were still having anxiety attacks at too many sets of sirens too close together, having our bags checked every time we entered a public building, passing barriers and police blockades and National Guardsmen every time we left our apartments.

The woman who lived 2 apartments down from me was one of the victims. For months, there were flowers taped around the tree in our front yard, with candles and the missing posters that had been posted around the city for her, as they were for so many others. Each year on the anniversary, someone tapes flowers for her to that tree. For the first few years the missing posters were added. Some years there were yellow ribbons. This year, even though her family has moved from the building, it’s the flowers and a simple note.

For many of us, yesterday was mostly a regular day. We are the lucky ones. We go to work, attend meetings, live our lives. But in our own quiet ways, we remember.